Short Takes

Jennifer Mesrie had planned to study drama this summer. Michal Benzaquen was going to earn some money as a lifeguard. Shaanan Meyerstein "was definitely going to travel somewhere."
All three are traveling to South America this month: as Jewish community volunteers, not tourists.

A religious court in Jerusalem has taken up the case of sex abuse charges leveled at Rabbi Matis Weinberg, the noted Torah scholar, author and lecturer accused of making advances toward former yeshiva students, The Jewish Week has learned.
The bet din is affiliated with the Badatz Eida Haredi, a well-known religious court in the fervently Orthodox sector of the community.

A student group at Rutgers University is planning a pro-Palestinian event on campus in October, expected to draw 500 anti-Israel activists from across the nation.
The New Jersey Solidarity Movement will host the National Student Conference of the Palestine Solidarity Movement, with the intention of teaching students to pressure their universities to divest in companies that do business with Israel.
An organizer of the event, Charlotte Kates, told The New York Post she considered Palestinian bombings "a very powerful tool of justice."

The interviews were going on back-to-back and side-by-side. In one closet-size office at a public relations firm on Seventh Avenue, the Israeli actor Oren Rehany talked about his film debut in “The Holy Land,” which opens Friday at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan. Next door, Rehany’s co-star Tchelet Semel described the challenges of portraying a Russian prostitute when she is neither. One office over it was Saul Stein, slimmed down from his role as the burly American bar owner, Mike, but still exhibiting the character’s gravely voice and toothy grin.

The interviews were going on back-to-back and side-by-side. In one closet-size office at a public relations firm on Seventh Avenue, the Israeli actor Oren Rehany talked about his film debut in “The Holy Land,” which opens Friday at the Angelika Film Center in Manhattan. Next door, Rehany’s co-star Tchelet Semel described the challenges of portraying a Russian prostitute when she is neither. One office over it was Saul Stein, slimmed down from his role as the burly American bar owner, Mike, but still exhibiting the character’s gravely voice and toothy grin.

Jews and Evangelical Christians, Israel wants you, and will pay half a million bucks to make sure you come.
After seeing a 14 percent jump in tourism in April, the Ministry of Tourism is launching a $500,000 advertising blitz in media aimed at the two groups that have kept the industry barely alive with solidarity missions despite 32 months of violence.